President Sheri Scarborough announced that the Palm Beach County School Board has effectively abandoned plans to build a new elementary school on farmland behind the 95th Street library just north of Glades Road.

The choice of this location generated a growing chorus of opposition from the communities adjacent to the proposed site out of concern that it would create a serious transportation bottleneck for their neighborhoods.  The Council lent its voice to this opposition and urged that traffic be routed in and out of the school grounds via Lyons Road rather than 95th Street.

The high estimated cost of building the school on this site in the current economic climate was also a factor for those opposing it. The School Board still intends to relieve overcrowding in existing schools in West Boca and in anticipation of a growing population north of Clint Moore Road by modernizing and enlarging Whispering Pines Elementary School. Modifying Whispering Pines will save the District millions of dollars in construction costs since the District already owns sufficient land at the Whispering Pines site to allow for the modifications without the need to purchase additional land. 

University Drive Expansion

Commissioner Burt Aaronson updated the meeting about the all but certain outcome that Broward’s University Drive will not be expanded through West Boca west of 441.

The battle over this proposed extension has been going on for the better part of a decade, during which there were many turns and twists in the road.  Commissioner Aaronson credited a recent Palm Beach County compromise regarding the widening of 441 for winning over the support of the Department of Community Affairs and the Department of Transportation, two state agencies whose support was essential to stopping the proposed extension.  He predicted that the PBC Board of County Commissioners would vote to ratify the agreement later in April and the last of the legal initiatives in the case would be wrapped up sometime this summer.

Crime News

Captain Matt Eisenberg, who commands PBSO in West Boca, told the group that some residents of West Boca continue to make it easy for criminals despite the soaring crime rate.  He noted that thus far in April, 76% of all car burglaries involved unlocked vehicles.